State of the Peloton 2024

[awavey]

Didn't even seem like that was his point.

He was trying to say the Vuelta was too hard in a demented word salad way

That's what I thought listening to that, "the UCI must do something" because the races are too hard and only the same riders are at the front

It did feel like a stream of consciousness unleashed and it started going the obvious conclusion, and then veered off at a tangent when he realised he was digging himself a big hole.

 

[Tim Cahill]

Rumour of the day going round amongst the Norwegian's is that Hushovd never liked Arvesen after he caught him blood doping in a Swedish hotel many years ago, leading to recent events.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Don't remember ever hearing something like that on an English broadcast. The strangest thing was that he blurted it out as a result of Marc Soler's poor tactics as well, saw the 20th crap attack and decided after 15 years of broadcasting that enough was enough and he was going to sound off for the first time.

One of my favourites in that respect was back in about 2009 or so, when David Harmon asked Sean why he thought Damiano Cunego was no longer contesting as strongly for GCs as he had been in 2004 despite heading into his peak years, and seemed to struggle for recovery compared to his breakout. Sean simply said "it was a different era of cycling then". Harmon then pressed for what had changed, was there changes to diet, race calendar, pressure on his shoulders, the merger of Saeco and Lampre perhaps? Kelly just repeated, but in a much firmer tone, "I said, it was a different era of cycling" and Harmon changed the subject.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

Don't remember ever hearing something like that on an English broadcast. The strangest thing was that he blurted it out as a result of Marc Soler's poor tactics as well, saw the 20th crap attack and decided after 15 years of broadcasting that enough was enough and he was going to sound off for the first time.

I had no idea it was so bad, basically for me hearing it was more of a "oh no, the hard races make you dope" trope. It's really not that you could say German broadcaster were nearly as critical as they used to be, but the fact of doping and it's past comes up often enough in broadcast and it was mentioned during the Tour as well, as we all saw what we saw. I kind of assuemd at least something similar would not be a total surprise for the english speaking audience.

Basically Kelly seemed to be saying for me: "the races are to hard, UCI must do something about it"; rather than "they are doping, UCI must do something about it". Which I was kind of expecting, because that would make me go "okay wow someone said that".

 

[Rackham]

Pablo Castrillo is setting off my 'this doesn't smell right' radar.

Pretty weird set of circumstances as well, with the team owner dying on the day he won Thursday's stage... & now he wins Cuito Negru.

Padun-esque.

 

[awavey]

Pablo Castrillo is setting off my 'this doesn't smell right' radar.

Pretty weird set of circumstances as well, with the team owner dying on the day he won Thursday's stage... & now he wins Cuito Negru.

Padun-esque.

It seems miraculous and i dont believe in miracles, especially when Kirby sounded incredulous whilst reading out his height and weight disadvantages to all the climbers in this race he just smoked going up there.

 

[noob]

Pablo Castrillo is setting off my 'this doesn't smell right' radar.

Pretty weird set of circumstances as well, with the team owner dying on the day he won Thursday's stage... & now he wins Cuito Negru.

Padun-esque.

I also thought of Padun

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Seems like classic contract-year double vuelta stage win stuff, always possible if you're motivated and in form in a peloton of riders who are desperate for off-season (I'm not saying this means he is clean)

His age means limited questions will be asked, and nobody was really bothered by Ben king/Tomas marsvynskiy (wtf is this name).

In a world where UAE and viasma win everything this doesn't bother me so much

 

[zlev11]

it's very reminiscent of Padun but just like Padun he is clearly a very talented rider. he's just joining the club everyone else has been in for the past 4 seasons.

 

[Froome]

74 kg?

What a year. This new cycling will end in a bad way.

 

[Netserk]

Pablo Castrillo is setting off my 'this doesn't smell right' radar.

Pretty weird set of circumstances as well, with the team owner dying on the day he won Thursday's stage... & now he wins Cuito Negru.

Padun-esque.

He's not exactly winning from the peloton. Sivakov (and Vine) dragged him to the finish, and then he had to beat Vlasov in the end. He was already climbing better than him to Granada.

 

[will-10]

It seems miraculous and i dont believe in miracles, especially when Kirby sounded incredulous whilst reading out his height and weight disadvantages to all the climbers in this race he just smoked going up there.

Wouldn't give Carlton that much credit - he was reading off the stats he had in front of him on PCS because he didn't know a thing about him. He has previous for this when a lesser known rider wins, you can literally hear him reading off key results in the order they appear on the rider page on the website.

 

[Psycat]

Spanish rider at Vuelta, contract year, oversized for winning this type of stage well yeah it's not a little suspicious in my mind.

Cheered for him when he won the first stage thinking it was a rider from a small team putting everything on the line for one day and stars aligning. After today though? Not so sure I feel the same.

Like an unholy mix of WvA and Voeckler.

 

[solo80k]

Spanish rider at Vuelta, contract year, oversized for winning this type of stage well yeah it's not a little suspicious in my mind.

Cheered for him when he won the first stage thinking it was a rider from a small team putting everything on the line for one day and stars aligning. After today though? Not so sure I feel the same.

Like an unholy mix of WvA and Voeckler.

Doped up to the eyebrows.
He's looking like responding for the first time to drugs. He doesn't know his limits.

 

[pastronef]

I didn't think even for a moment about doping while watching the stage and Castrillo's win.

 

[Escarabajo]

74 kg?

What a year. This new cycling will end in a bad way.

I agree. This is not going to end good. I don't know when but it will happen at some point!

 

[Escarabajo]

Alexander Foliforov - esque!

He was also from small team, Padum was riding for Bahrain!

 

[Escarabajo]

Sean Kelly it appears no longer gives a f***

https://twitter.com/x/status/1829529353027506202

(Rich from him I know but hilarious to hear on a broadcast)

That was before Pablo Castrillo happened!!!! LOL.
I didn't know he was pissed. Wow. That is a first time I hear a commentator of this stature calling it out like that. At least everyone try to brush it under the carpet!

 

[Nick2413]

Even if Kelly didn’t intend his words to come across as calling out doping it’d be nice if commentators would start dropping some real talk like that with just enough ambiguity to claim innocence. That’s some trolling I’d pay to see.

 

[Escarabajo]

what was the name of that rider that INEOS contracted but never put a pedal forward because of doping issues?

 

[Rob5091]

Whatever rocket fuel the peloton is using, has obviously reached down to the pro teams.

 

[noob]

Even if Kelly didn’t intend his words to come across as calling out doping it’d be nice if commentators would start dropping some real talk like that with just enough ambiguity to claim innocence. That’s some trolling I’d pay to see.

My commentators gets questions about doping all the time for every big race and talks about it. Sometimes they do some trolling but the next day or race it's back to all the long explanations 🤐 Sometimes it's like they're itching 😁 I'd say this year they were in more disbelief behind the lines.

 

[ontheroad]

Spanish rider at Vuelta, contract year, oversized for winning this type of stage well yeah it's not a little suspicious in my mind.

Cheered for him when he won the first stage thinking it was a rider from a small team putting everything on the line for one day and stars aligning. After today though? Not so sure I feel the same.

Like an unholy mix of WvA and Voeckler.

That's exactly how I felt. His first stage victory was from the break and he looked genuinely cooked at the finish line. Coming from a small team I was happy to see him sticking it to the bigger world tour teams. But to repeat the dose and if you look at the amount of breakaways he's been in, he must have super recovery powers. Add in the Spanish rider in Spain angle and his contract situation and there are too many red flags for my liking.

 

[pastronef]

I didn't think even for a moment about doping while watching the stage and Castrillo's win.

I am not joking. I just didn't want Vlasov to win and I didnt for a single moment think about doping while watching the climb.

 

[awavey]

Wouldn't give Carlton that much credit - he was reading off the stats he had in front of him on PCS because he didn't know a thing about him. He has previous for this when a lesser known rider wins, you can literally hear him reading off key results in the order they appear on the rider page on the website.

Oh I know he was reading them off PCS,

what I meant is he's reading them and his brain is going wait, what!!! this guy noone had heard of till last week is 74kg 6ft tall , and he's just done this climb quicker than some of the sports best recognised climbers who have between 5-10kg less weight and several inches less, to carry up a mountain and he didn't look half as knackered as Vaslov did at the end.

Cyclists built like him aren't usually that good up mountains